Communism and Left Melancholy Filed under UNCATEGORIZED0 Are contemporary attempts to reformulate and reappropriate Communism utopian

dre ams of the left melancholic ? By Rafael Vizcano

Photo courtesy of Alexis Gravel There is now a growing number of people that define their theoretical and sociopolitical practice under the label of Communism. This shows that more and more peo ple are coming to realize that our current systems of politico-economic organiza tion are very far away from their promises. Theorists like Alain Badiou, Slavoj i e k, Jodi Dean, and Santiago Zabala are presently putting forward different formul ations of Communism as an alternative to our current systems of politico-economi c organization. Similarly, one can perceive an increased presence of Communist rh etoric in recent social and political movements like some Arab Spring uprisings a nd the student movements in Chile and Quebec. We all know the problem: neoliberal capitalism corrupted (the anarchists would s ay: colluded with) the representative-democratic State to form what Badiou calls capitalo-parliamentarianism. We leftists, radicals, progressives, dreamers, rev olutionaries, believe in the possibilities of a different world. As such, we all seek to challenge, in the unity of our divergent ways, this repressive System t hat likes to present itself as an absolute necessity. There is an interesting argument, however, that seems to reduce the recent refor mulations and reappropriations of the label of Communism as suffering from a par ticular case of left melancholy. In a brief article published in 1999, Wendy Brown reads Walter Benjamin to define the left melancholic as the revolutionary hack who is, finally, attached more to a particular political analysis or ideal even to the failure of that ideal than to seizing possibilities for radical change in th e present. A question that is then worth asking is: Are contemporary attempts to reformulate and reappropriate Communism utopian dreams of the left melancholic ? There is an argument for a positive answer to this question. To use the label of Communism to designate the alternative to capitalo-parliamentarianism is to fai l to apprehend the character of the age, as Brown would say. It would be to fail t o realize the extent to which the Idea of Communism has been damaged by the cata strophes of 20th century Socialism and the successes of its capitalist counterpart . It would be to posit an anachronistic ideal that would not find any connection whatsoever in peoples today. Instead of holding to these long-held sentiments an d objects, this argument says that we must cure our left melancholy by seeking inst ead for the possibilities of political transformation in the present. Forget Commu nism, after Stalin and Mao any radical-left project s credibility will be forever shattered. Similarly, haven t you heard that the notion of revolution is completel y unviable in our 21st century? Reform won the historical battle, so if you want to change the world, you must work from within the existing capitalo-parliament arianist System, so as to slowly reform it for the better. Radicalize social dem ocracy, though beware of totalitarianism. There is, however, also an argument for a negative answer to our question and he re I will follow Dean s recent articulation of the Communist Horizon. This argument says that nothing like the word Communism expresses anti-capitalism, which is wh y we must retain, reappropriate, and reformulate the label of Communism. We must also realize that the prevalent discreditation of Socialism and Communism is no t just a result of Stalin and Mao, but also the legacy of McCarthyism. Capitaloparliamentarianists want us to believe that because of the disasters of Stalin a nd Mao, the possibilities of a radically different world are gone forever. We mu

st acknowledge, however, that this is not the case. Indeed, we can learn from hi story! Here we must mention Samuel Beckett s famous quote as appropriated by i ek: tr y again, fail again, fail better. This failure, which is nonetheless better than the previous realization, remains a failure because Communism is an Idea, one t hat, like the Idea of Democracy, we can only forever approximate without ever ac tually reaching. The problem then would not be that a call for Communism is anac hronistic and as a result it would not find any connection whatsoever in peoples today. Instead, the problem becomes a matter of how well we can actually define and articulate the new road to the Communist Idea vis--vis the present and futur e failures of capitalo-parliamentarianism. I would say, then, that inasmuch as Communism is an Idea, contemporary attempts to reformulate and reappropriate it are only to that extent expression of a left melancholy. However, this conclusion does not at all entail that these attempts t o reformulate and reappropriate Communism are somehow futile. For just as the im possibility of its realization is inherent in Communism, this impossibility is a lso inherent in, say, the Market and Freedom. The point then is that it must als o be recognized that all those who adhere to the capitalo-parliamentarianism Sys tem do so out of some sort of melancholy as well ( liberal melancholy could be an a ppropriate label). Thus, the solution to our so-called left melancholy does not necessarily entail a call to work from within the existing capitalo-parliamentarianist System so as t o slowly reform it for the better. A radically different world is indeed possibl e! And whether this radically different world could be achieved through revoluti on or reform is still an open, context-dependent question. What we must do, howe ver, as leftists, radicals, progressives, dreamers, revolutionaries, is to minim ize our potential left melancholy as much as possible since it is impossible to ge t rid of it altogether. What we must take from Wendy Brown s article is the unders tanding that we must be ruthlessly rigorous with ourselves in our assessments of the contemporary historical situation so as to minimize any anachronisms as muc h as possible. I believe that only by taking these steps will we begin to see th e outline of an alternative to capitalo-parliamentarianism. This piece appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of The Protest.